Pete Hoffman

(22 February 1919 - 7 September 2013, USA)

Jeff Cobb (Quebec edition)

The artist Pete Hoffman was born in Toledo, Ohio on George Washington's birthday. Hoffman considered a career in comics while attending the University of Toledo, where he graduated in advertising and marketing in 1941. After serving in the US Army Air Corps in World War II, he became a ghost artist for Allen Saunders' and Elmer Woggon's 'Steve Roper' strip. He stayed with the strip until 1954, and during this period he gave the strip a more serious look.

Hoffman's own newspaper comic starring heroic reporter 'Jeff Cobb', started on 28 June 1954 and was distributed by General Features Syndicate. The strip ran until October 1975, by then it was syndicated by the Los Angeles Times Syndicate. During the same period, Hoffman was also the illustrator of the single-panel feature 'Why We Say' (1950-1978) by Robert Morgan, which explained word and phrase origins.

By 1975, Hoffman became a freelancer and worked on University of Toledo alumni projects. Some of Pete Hoffman's originals are on display in the international museum of cartoon art. He continued to live in Toledo after retiring, and passed away from a heart attack on 7 September 2013, aged 94.